#1CutlassSupreme

Hey fellow Olds fans. here's a doozey for you. I recently had a very bad experience with a reproduction ram air hood and got some pretty crumby service from the supplier. They sold me fiberglass, ram air hood where the only thing holding the hood bolts in place was epoxy that busted out while the shop was installing it. I tried to be fair with the vendor to find a resolution, but they were apathetic and disinterested in even talking with me. Anyway, below is my email if you're interested. Has anyone else had a bad experience with this place's customer service before?

Hello XXXX and XXXX,

Thank you for trying to resolve the issue of my damaged hood with your supplier. I understand that you feel like you are in the middle between me as your customer and your anonymous supplier. But I am also stuck in the middle between you and my paint and body shop.

At this point I have to decline shipping the hood back. The paint job on my car alone has cost more than $xx,xxx and the risk of damaging the paint on hood while in transit and during the repair process outweighs the cost of having it fixed by my shop for $450.

To ship the hood back and forth is going to cost you or the manufacturer more than giving me a store credit. It is approximately $120 in freight costs to ship the hood one way and will be about the same to ship it back to me. That is nearly $240 in shipping costs alone which, again, is more than the $225 I am willing to settle for to purchase more items from you.

I believe that my compromise of splitting the cost of repairs with you for a store credit of $225 is a more than fair resolution. My goal was to save time and money for you, your suppliers, and for me. Not to mention that I also wanted to continue an good ongoing purchasing relationship.

I’ve spent over $1,400 with you so far and until now I have been very satisfied. The lack of ownership and follow through in this situation on your end however has been disappointing. At this point, without adequate resolution, I cannot bring myself to purchase my steering wheel kit, carpet kit, or any other items I need for my current and future projects from The Parts Place Inc.

As I mentioned on the phone, I will be starting a 442 project after my Cutlass is complete. I’ve attached a picture of the 442 sitting in the garage next to the Cutlass. I would have given you my business on that project as well, but at this point that is not going to happen. Frankly, it seems like you don’t value long-term customer relationships and that’s too bad because I am a pretty loyal customer. Good luck.

Gary's 2 442-S

I have used them before with no problem,but I didnt use them to purchase my hood. I have a 72 442 and they did not carry the hood that has the metal frame for my year. They had 2 different types,one that could bolt down and the other which is a couple hundred dollars less that uses a pin type assembly to secure it down. A lot of the time these hoods dont fit very well. The body shop would have to do a lot of work on these hoods. I know that the Parts Place does sell a 70 ram air hood with the metal frame for little over 700.00 which would be a better buy because you could use your factory hinges on it. I still dont know how it would fit,put probably much better than the other. I purchased my hood from Thornton who makes their hoods to the manufactures specs. It has the metal frame.

#1CutlassSupreme

Yeah, I was pretty excited about The Parts Place when I first came across them. The prices were good, but perhaps that's because they don't offer quality service. I bought the hood, hood latch kit, spoiler, rallye pack gauges, and the gauge install kit from them. I figured they would be reasonable and work with me. I'm not trying to be a big whiner...I'm just really disappointed. They have a lot of good stuff I wanted for my car at the right prices. They lost my business on my next 442 project and on a 69' Chevelle a friend of mine and I have been eyeballing.

Admittedly the hood itself actually fit pretty well. The shop didn't have to modify anything but the crumby fasteners.

I have also looked for a 72' ram air with the steel frame, but with no luck. The 70' hood doesn't work for a 71'-72' becuase the factory put a small step up in the hood for he bigger grille to fit.

At the time I was looking for my hood Thornton had a notice on their site that their hoods were out of stock or not available. Perhaps later on I'll contact them later and get the proper metal frame. As of now however, I'm already into this fiberglass unit over $1,200. Ah well, you win some and lose some.

J-(Chicago)

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of theirs.
They have blown me off more than once.
Sucks too, because they are local to the area here.

#1CutlassSupreme

Yeah, I told them that I would be sharing my experience with all of my friends at the cruise ins, here on this forum, and at car shows.

They seemed so solid at first, but not standing by the products they distribute is just not good business.

I'm not one to try and ruin a company's reputation. I'll leave that up to them. I just figure that if I can keep some change in a fellow enthusiast's pocket and save them from the headache then it's worth the gripe.

They did contact me yesterday and say that they're working to see if their vendor will compensate them for the shoddy product. We'll see how that goes and I'll post the results. If they do come through with a resolution, I'm willing to be fair and post the results of their resolution.

Lady72nRob71

Looks like they are getting worse fast; I am hearing and experiencing more negatives about them just recently. This is the second hood issue I have heard of in the past several weeks.
I have certainly had my issues with them; see my power window conversion thread...
They should at least hold their suppliers responsible for the products they sell.
Bad thing is that I have found that they love to argue about the truth and they try to convince you that wrong is right...

Gary's 2 442-S

I just got some parts from them yesterday with no problem. During Thanksgiving weekend they ran a ad giving 10% off and I jump on it. I received everything that I ordered which was over 700.00 worth of parts. I have used them on one other occasion and had no problem then either,but I knew there was no way that I was going to get one of their hoods because a lot of those after market fiber glass hoods and this goes for other cars like Chevy,Ford and others,I had heard some horror stories about how bad they fit from a couple of guys here in town that do restorations. They said they had to do some serious modifications to those hoods and their customers didnt understand it. They were saying that a lot of the time the hoods just dont line up properly.The PARTS PLACE in my opinion should have made some type of restitution with you. They are the one using a vendor who is making a bad product.I have ordered a hood as well but from Thorntons which for sure is very pricey. I have not received it yet so I cant say how it fits. But what I plan on doing when I get it,is to put it on before I do anything to it and see how it aligns. I am not defending them, because in the past I have used Tamraz and Fusicks and even using Tamarz they sendt me the wrong part which was a wheel well molding and I welded it on. The quarter panel didnt fit on it and they would not give me my money back. I bought another one from them but at least they waived the shipping charges
Gary

#1CutlassSupreme

Yeah, I can see your point of view Gary, I've had a positive experience with them until now. But they really dropped the ball on this one and left me hanging. I knew that the hood wouldn't be perfect once mounted and would take some adjusting, but I figured I would at the very least be able to mount it to the hinges without the nuts popping out. I initially looked into a Thronton's hood, but at the time they didn't offer a steel frame ram-air for a 72' and yeah....very very spendy. Although with my repair and paint costs I guess I'm into this hood about $1,200 by now anyway.

I've made purchases with OPGI and when something was wrong, they wasted no time correcting the problem. They are little pricy sometimes, but I almost think that their prompt service and follow through is worth it.

As I've said before, I was most dissappointed because the sales/service reps were so apathetic about the situation and offered nothing until I really pressed them hard about it. I spent about $2,000 with them over 3 months and after this project I will be starting a 442 project with my father. I told them of our next project and I tried to be fair and come up with a win/win solution, but they were unwilling to even consider my offer. I guess that's that though. There's plenty of other suppliers out there that could use the money with today's economy and are willing to do that is right.

#1CutlassSupreme

I'm wondering if the the manufacturer is trying to cut back on material costs and is getting chincy on the product construction.

I'm still waiting to hear back from them to see if the manufacturer is going to send back some money. The Parts Place told me that they have sold hundreds of those hoods and have never had any problems, but it would seem that based on your posting and mine that this must be a fairly new issue in their product quality. Perhaps the other complaint along with mine may have prompted them to investigate their supplier. That could be why the responded to me recently.

Lady72nRob71

Very possible. Often things look good on paper for cost cutting but do not stand up to real life use.
I have experienced many issues like this on many things this past year, even including toilet paper...
Try to have the PP interogate the vendor, even though they may not admit to anything (the big underlying problem)...

#1CutlassSupreme

Yeah, I believe they are doing that. My expectation however is that they would fix the problem up front with me then use their leverage to take it up with their manufacturer. I would be happy to call the manufacturer myself and circumvent The Parts Place, but they refuse to release the name or contact information. I think I know who the supplier is, but I would hate to call them up and give em a chewin' if it's not them.

If the PP wants to keep that information from me then I think that they put themselves in the position of having to rectify the situation with me.

Anyway, it's sunk cost at this point and it's their long-term loss.

Hal Robinson

I just joined this site a few days ago. This is a great site. In regards to the Olds replacement hoods. I purchased one of The Parts Place first metal/fiberglass combo hoods for my 70 442 a little over a year ago. The first hood I received was damaged in shipment. It was packed in a large cardboard box and the rear pointed corners of the hood were broken.They since have improved packaging. I wanted to buy as correct of a hood that was available, but Thorton was in a "we are not making these right now mood", and with no anticipated date of resuming production, I thought The Parts Place hood would work out fine. after all, it was fiberglass and metal, kind of like the original. Cost was not a factor as this time.I didn't want to buy used and here was a somewhat correct hood, so I bought it. It fits ok, but just ok. The front chrome mounting arrangement requires some large washers to secure the left and right long chrome mouldings where they make the curve near the 442 emblem. The original hood has sheet metal there with holes drilled for the moulding screws. The replacement hood has a metal void in the area, so washers were necessary to find something to grab on to so the chrome could be tightened against the hood. They used rivets to secure the fiberglass to the metal frame. The work reveting work was sloppy in several areas. The overall look of the hood is very presentable, but it really doesn't line up well with the fender line shape and front latching. I have purchased several items from the Parts Place, including their after market rally pac set up, which is terrific. I purchased several other items from them that I have been satisfied with. I think their phone etiquette could be better, but so could some of the others. Sometimes you feel some of these guys are doing the public a big favor by letting us buy parts from them. I think overall that the hood looks fine, but if the correct one was available, I would have bought it without question. I have had good success with Mike Fusick's team on thousands of $ of parts used on my 55 Olds resto. Unfortunately, Fusick doesn't carry the variety of parts that some of the other vendors do. My experience with the Original Parts Group on two ocassions I purchased from them has not resembled anything near the quality of the "original parts". I found that buying cheaper parts saves money but increases frustration and disatisfaction. You have to make the decision of which is more important to you

Hal